Rolling down my sides, pools of sweat
cool earth welcomes my ear.

There, sweet breezes meet and save me
cheek on checkered parquet.

Muted paws startle and patter off
midnight swings its low call.

Can you see the stars through the ceiling?
only impossible dreamers do.

She is always there, like a subtle cocoon
ringing in the new, so easy.

They never elucidated on how heavy cases await
while you shift to art and music dies.

Platters on the way and milky mix, a messy spill
time to don a sombrero.

Let's drink to the future and pour me a glass
tiny toothpick draped in paper.

Hollow gifts and hard wages, a song for the mass
small coin for mules, clap for the fools.

I tried to write a sonnet once
But only wrote twelve lines.
With number I am ever the dunce,
Make errors of all kinds.
Ten syllables is what’s required
Repeated fourteen times.
It makes me oh so very tired,
Before I find those rhymes.
And now I need a turning point,
A solution to the problem.
It’s time for me to rock this joint
From Cleethorpes up to Rotherham.
It looks contrived does each old poem,
So back to the drawing board I am going.

Paul Butters

from the mud
a bluesy mood
bruisings coloured
in butterflies
fire flight
all but smoke
this choke
short circuited
words from
a hat
withdraw
the shorter straw
her fate
the cave
no translation
available
for the opacity
of that night